


O the strength of webs we weave

by iarrannme



Series: Planting and other stories [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome May Parker (Spider-Man), Friendship, Gen, Multi, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home Mid-Credits Scene, Protective Happy, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Secret Identity Fail, Spider-Man Identity Reveal, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 08:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20355436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iarrannme/pseuds/iarrannme
Summary: May and Happy, Prowler/Aaron Davis, Mr. Delmar, Adrian Toomes, and Liz Allan react to the news of Spider-Man's identity being revealed.  Most try to protect him in their own way.  (Aaron just wants ice cream.)This work takes place at the same time asPlanting.





	O the strength of webs we weave

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a reference to "Oh, what a tangled web we weave/When first we practise to deceive!" ([_Marmion_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmion_\(poem\)), Walter Scott). I like the idea that even though Spider-Man/Peter Parker has been deceptive about his identity, in both roles his actions have woven a web of trust with the people who know him.
> 
> The first three scenes all start nearly immediately after the first end-credits scene. The last two scenes are later that afternoon/evening.

**May**

She’s just gotten to work when her phone starts buzzing. She glances at it. Happy. Ah, c’mon, not now, wasn’t the awkwardness Peter just put them through enough? She pulls up her notes on the food drive. OK, next she needs to call –

The phone buzzes again. Voicemail. Fine, Happy, whatever, she’ll listen to it later.

Again. Text. Oh for – she sighs and looks at it. _Please call re: Peter ASAP_. Oh fuck.

He answers right away. “He’s on his way to you, so you’ve only got a couple minutes to tell everyone. I’m heading in to interrupt Pepper in a meeting.”

“Wait – what?” At least it’s not the call she’s always dreading.

“Don’t you watch the news? You’re as bad as he is.”

“Happy, I’m working, what news?”

“His cover’s blown. Somebody posted footage from the Tower Bridge –” By the time he’s finished his explanation she’s found the video on her workstation. The combination of fear, rage and protectiveness makes her clench her fist so hard she snaps her pencil. “– I gotta go, tell Peter we already have security on the way to you and the apartment and he’s to use EDITH to confirm who they are, don’t just look at their IDs.” He hangs up.

Before she can even consider what to say to her coworkers, Peter – Spider-Man – bursts through the door. “May? May!”

The rest of the afternoon is a blur. Her coworkers’ shock, but instant support. Reaching the apartment to find six Stark Industries security types waiting – Peter insists on not only consulting EDITH, but video-chatting Happy to have him confirm. Pacing while they spend the afternoon installing god-knows-what around every door and window and drain and faucet and vent and in the walls and she doesn’t even want to know why two of them head up to the roof. And then Peter, damn his superhero heart, insists he’s going on patrol, because “I’ve already been gone too long, someone’ll definitely try something tonight.” She clenches her fists again, then…hugs him and lets him go, because he’s right. And her fear for him is only worse, not new.

The fear for herself and MJ and Ned and their families is new. She tries to ignore it. But alone in the apartment, waiting for Peter to come back or for something to trigger one of the alarms, she’s jittery. OK, she needs to do something. Where are _her_ superpowers?

Happy calls while she’s finishing the last of her Thai leftovers. “The security systems on the apartment all look good. We’re figuring out how to handle work and your commute too.”

“You can’t make my work a fortress, Happy,” she points out. “The whole point is for people to be able to get to us when they need us.”

He sighs. “Yeah. I know.” He’s quiet for a moment, and she appreciates that he’s at least trying to restrain himself. “We’re buying your building, by the way.”

“What?” So much for restraint.

“Pepper made that decision as soon as I told her what was going on. We needed to move fast. There’d already been three inquiries by the time we got ours in, but Pepper made sure our offer was persuasive. We’re following up on who made the others. Don’t expect it to be friends. We have inquiries going on the surrounding buildings too.”

“Stark Industries is going into the New York housing market?”

“It won’t say Stark Industries. I’ll make sure you know what names to expect. Nick Fury’s people are handling vetting residents and building-level security upgrades, but you won’t see SHIELD logos plastered all over either.”

“Vetting – Happy, no, that’s not right, people don’t deserve to lose their homes over this!”

“May, they’ve already found two undocumented families and three people with various convictions –”

“Happy goddamn Hogan, if you or Nick Fury is responsible for ONE undocumented family getting evicted, I will – and you tell me, those people with convictions, how many of them are white?”

“Uh…”

“We’ve talked about systemic racism in our justice system screwing people over even after they get out, I will _not_ be part of making it worse.”

“Even if they’re good people they’re vulnerable to blackmail –”

She hangs up on him. Stupid goddamn lying betraying piece of shit Mysterio, stupid supercriminals, stupid overprotective Happy, why do so many people shatter communities instead of –

Wait. That’s it. That’s her superpower.

She grabs paper and pen. Ned can make it a spreadsheet later, it’ll give guy-in-the-chair something to feel useful about while they’re all getting through the first freak-outs. Right now she just needs a list, and it won’t be the information Happy and his security goons would come up with. She starts with the people on their floor. Sra. Flores: no nuts. Mr. Hong: no dairy. Abiola and Klahan: fanatic about chocolate. OK, the vegan brownies will do for all of them, that’s enough to start with. She gets to work.

An hour later, she’s knocking on the next door down. “¿Señora Flores? ¿Podríamos hablar?” Her Spanish is good enough for neighborly hello-how-are-you, but she has no idea how she’s going to get through this. She spent the brownies’ baking time on a translation app, practicing _Por favor, necesitamos ayuda_ and – oh no, oh no, how could she have forgotten to look up how to say Spider-Man? _El hombre de_…crap. Well, she’ll see if “Spider-Man” works, she’ll draw, she’ll find a picture on her phone, she’ll do goddamn charades if she has to. She’s a community organizer, one of their own is threatened, and she will **_not_** let this ruin anything for anyone else. She’ll show Happy, she’ll shove it in Nick Fury’s face, she’ll make them see _stronger together_ isn’t just words.

She goes over the list again in her head. First their floor, then their building, then the buildings near them. She and her vegan brownies will knit them all together stronger than any web.

The door opens, and she steps through.

**Prowler/Aaron Davis**

He’s snatching a moment in a shaded alley when the familiar figure swings by overhead. In a hurry, looks like. He yells after it. “Hey. You still owe me ice cream.” He goes back to his phone.

He’d swear there was no other warning before the throat-clear behind him and the hesitant voice. “I, uh, never got a chance to thank you for the tip about the ferry. So, uh, thanks.”

He turns. “Yeah, I know that voice. Guess you really ain’t a girl.” He shows his phone screen: breaking news, big picture of Peter Parker, smaller pictures of Spider-Man and Mysterio.

Spider-Man sighs. “Mysterio was controlling all the drones, I didn’t –”

He just laughs. “Nah dude, shit, you can’t even intimidate one single guy with his hand webbed to his car, you ain’t out there killin’.” He shrugs. “Everybody you put away knows it. I mean they ain’t your friends but they know that video’s shit.”

The kid actually seems relieved to hear anyone believes in him. Even if it’s people who’d take a swing at him if they met him. Then he starts looking at the alley walls, like he’s about to take off again.

“Hey.” The kid looks back at him. “Thanks. For puttin’ that wing dude away. And whatever other weapons you took off the street. My nephew, he’s good.”

The kid nods. “Good. I’m glad. Uh, I gotta go, I kinda got some stuff –”

“Yeah, no shit. See you around.” Then as the kid spiders up the wall and swings away, it hits him – “HEY! YOU STILL OWE ME ICE CREAM!”

**Mr. Delmar**

The door jingles. “Two Cokes – hey, did you hear about Spider-Man? I mean what is _up_ with the world when some little kid kills –”

Third time in the last ten minutes. “No. I know Peter, he’s been coming here for a long time. He didn’t do it.”

“C’mon man, you don’t know –”

“I _know_ Peter. He didn’t do it.” As soon as he gets a minute, he’s going to make a sign. PETER PARKER SAVED MY LIFE AND MY CAT, HE CAN EAT HERE ANY TIME. Something like that. Then he can just point. He’ll make it a big ol’ poster and put it in the window. He’ll put it in all the Delmar’s ads. Gotta watch out for your own.

The door jingles. Two this time, talking excitedly to each other. “Man, that is fucked _up_, _Spider-Man_ killed–”

“No. He didn’t do it.” Four. He’ll do this all day if he has to. And the next. And the next.

Kid still doesn’t get to talk about his daughter, though. There are limits.

**Adrian Toomes**

He doesn’t know how it got out, or into the prison, but he knows this rumor won’t be disproven later. At least not the identity part; the idea of the kid ordering drones to kill people is obvious hogwash.

So. The kid’s been unmasked. Lots of people are already muttering. Some of them have channels out.

He’s survived in here this far. By silence here, intimidation there, negotiation, mentoring, double-crossing now and again – whatever strategy he had to, though not too much flat-out physical stuff. He ain’t as young as he used to be and some of these punks don’t know when to stop. He’s watched out for his own where he could – ha, ain’t that the story of his life.

But some debts don’t disappear. And _his own_ – well, that carries some meaning in here, sometimes, but there’s only two people on this earth that will be _his own_, before anything else, no matter what. Whether the shaky bridge of forgiveness they’ve lately started to think about maybe extending him stays up or not. And it might not – not once Liz realizes that “Peter ditched me and Spider-Man caught my dad on the same night” wasn’t a coincidence. He doesn’t think pointing out that Peter is responsible for his own moral choices would go over very well. Might just dynamite the bridge entirely. So he won’t say it.

He could’ve really liked the kid. Brave, good heart, respectful and protective of Liz. He’d already spent more time than he wanted brooding over how his own actions had cost his daughter that relationship. And everything else he’d wanted to always provide for her and Doris.

Liz is probably over whatever it was with Peter. She doesn’t tell him these things – or much else – anymore; he misses that. But getting to have any conversations with her at all – because she’s still alive, because she didn’t lose her dad – well, some debts just don’t disappear. And even if Liz is over the crush, she’d probably still be devastated if Peter bought it. Maybe he can at least spare her that. (And if something happens to the kid and Liz thinks he could have prevented it – she’ll never speak to him again.)

He sighs, and swings his feet off the bunk. The guard today is one who owes him a favor or two. “Hey. Tell the warden I need to talk. If he doesn’t want to listen, tell him it’s about Spider-Man. And keep your mouth shut about it.” Maybe he’ll be able to get some protection. Maybe he’ll get a knife in the throat. But he’s doing it for them. It’s always been for them.

**Liz**

She checks the light one more time, and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, and – no. Stop. This is just nervous fiddling. She needs to do this; Betty’s text was urgent, and once she saw the news for herself, she could see why. So. OK. Deep breath. She hits record.

“So, I just found out Spider-Man is Peter Parker. Which, uh, helps make sense of the worst night of my life, but also makes me _really_ sure he didn’t try to kill people. Um, so, my dad is Adrian Toomes, he’s in jail for selling alien weapon tech. Spider-Man is the one who stopped him. On the night of my senior prom. Peter Parker was my date, and he ditched me. Just left me there in the middle of the floor. And I knew he really liked me, because he was, like, totally obvious. So I was pretty hurt, and mad at him, but now I see: Peter ditched a girl he really liked on our very first date, knowing he could never explain or make it up to me, to go risk his life, because it was the right thing to do. And even though my dad tried really hard to kill him, Peter still risked his life – again – to save him. Maybe for me. Maybe because it was right. I don’t know. But I do know the boy who did that would never try to hurt or kill anyone. Peter, if you’re watching this, I’m – I’m glad you figured out what was going on with you.”

Stop. Breathe. Post. Text Betty. _It’s done_.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are welcome. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
